Somewhere In Between

A lot is on our minds lately. Somewhere in between the chaos, I have had a little time to have some thoughts.

Thoughts Between Chaos

Last month, I was writing about the Somewhere in between comfort and challenge.

Earlier this week I was thinking about the best way to make career and life changes. In one extreme, you could jump right into change and take a leap of faith. On the other, you can stay in one safe place until you are set for life and then pursue whatever you’d like.

Not-so-Normal Distribution

If the famous bell curve has thought us anything, it is that most of us will land somewhere in between the two extremes.

Then one evening, Katie and I, were reflecting on the world’s current drama of COVID-19 responses. Some people are still advocating extreme precaution while others are ready to return to normal at any cost.

It dawned on me just how often the most appropriate response is in the middle.

We rarely think this way in our bipartisan country. Issues in debates are rarely debated. The nominees either echo, deny, or stoop to slandering others rather than genuinely discussing. It has us looking like an inverse to the normal distribution.

We have lost the somewhere in between.

I am not sure that opening the country up all at once would be right, but I don’t think that we need to worry when someone enters our six foot bubble anymore.

Finding the Somewhere In Between

For all other issues and events that hurt my brain to think about right now, the same is probably true: The answer is in the middle ground, if we can ever find it – and if we could find it, if we could stay there.

Everything will require a discussion and deeper understanding than headlines, statements, or social media one-liners. These conversations are long. They are complex. Yet, every post in my newsfeed thinks that it is profound by acknowledging a single counter-example to the opposing view.

I am an average guy, who thinks average things, and thinks that the truth often lies in the average.

The case-by-case application of this requires an open conversation with every participant willing to humble themselves and meet in the middle ground.

Somewhere

in

between.